Academy Town Square
Academy Town Square: Stemming the Tide: How Philly Is Preparing for Floods in a Changing Climate
June 25, 2025
6-7:30 p.m.
6 p.m. Learn more about Flooding at Science Live
6:30 p.m. Panel discussion moderated by WHYY's Maiken Scott, featuring Abby Sullivan from the City of Philadelphia, Maura Jarvis from the US Water Alliance, and Marie-Monique Marthol of Germantown Residents for Economic Alternatives Together; Introductory remarks and historical context by the Academy’s Ryan Strand Greenberg.
Join us for the next Academy Town Square, where WHYY’s Maiken Scott moderates a powerful conversation with city officials and community organizers who are working to build resilience plans to reduce the impacts of climate change in Philadelphia neighborhoods. Learn how grassroots and institutional efforts are converging to protect communities like Germantown — now among the most vulnerable in the nation to urban flash flooding — from the growing impacts of climate change. The conversation will invite audiences into Philadelphia's historic watersheds to explore how the city's past informs its future and how stakeholders like you can help address a climate challenge over 150 years in the making.
More
In the 18th century, Philadelphia's landscape was shaped by nearly 300 miles of natural creeks. Between 1764 and 1966, these free-flowing streams were transformed into a network of underground sewers to capture stormwater, reduce exposure to waste and industrial pollutants and help contain public health outbreaks like typhoid and cholera. Today, this sewer infrastructure is increasingly strained by heavier rainfall driven by climate change, especially in the city's low-lying neighborhoods like Germantown. During these more frequent storms, water can back up through storm drains, utility holes and plumbing fixtures like toilets and basement drains, flooding streets and properties, damaging homes and businesses, triggering costly emergency responses and, in extreme cases, resulting in devastating personal losses.
This program is presented in conjunction with Living Within the Watershed: Enduring Floods in Germantown, currently on view in the Academy's Spotlight Gallery.
Panelists
Maura Jarvis is a Program Manager at the US Water Alliance, a national nonprofit organization advancing policies and programs that build a sustainable water future for all. Prior to joining the Alliance, Maura spent seven years working within the Philadelphia Water Department’s (PWD) Public Affairs division. Rising through the ranks from intern to Assistant Manager of the Public Engagement team, she led community outreach for the Green City, Clean Waters program and served as PWD’s superhero mascot, Water Woman. A proud Philadelphia native, Maura holds a custom, interdisciplinary degree in Sustainable Product Development from Drexel University and is passionate about advocating for environmental justice and equity in her hometown and beyond.
Marie-Monique Marthol has been a part of the Germantown community in Philadelphia for the past 18 years. She is a member of GREAT, Germantown Residents for Economic Alternatives Together, serving on its steering committee and working on housing justice, collective emergency preparedness and climate resilience. She believes in the power of imagination and prizes listening, learning, visioning and working in community for our collective liberation.
Abby Sullivan is the Chief Resilience Officer in the Philadelphia Office of Sustainability. In this role she leads Philadelphia’s citywide resilience planning. Previously, she served as an Environmental Scientist at the Philadelphia Water Department where she worked on their green stormwater infrastructure program and led the Department’s coastal flood resilience efforts on the Climate Change Adaptation Program. Abby is a Certified Floodplain Manager and serves on NASA’s Sea Level Change Practitioner Consultation Board. She has a Master of Resource Management degree from the University of Akureyri in Iceland.
Past Academy Town Squares
Conscious Fashion: Weaving a Sustainable Future
A cozy sweater to match your jeans, a new scarf to go with your coat, a few stylish shirts for the gym and maybe those cute yoga pants — shopping for clothes is fun, and depending on your tastes, affordable. But there are bigger costs than the price tag you see at the store. Every item in your closet has gone through many steps in a complex production process, from harvesting fibers, dyeing, and sewing to shipping and sales. And each step for these garments has major environmental consequences.
On Thursday, January 30, join us for a Town Square discussion on clothing and where it comes from. WHYY's Maiken Scott will chat about sustainable fashion with Heidi Barr, co-founder and CEO of PA Flax Project; Rachel Higgins, co-founder of PA Fibershed and instructor at Drexel University in the fashion industry and merchandising program; and Kimberly McGlonn, designer, CEO of NOOR by Grant Blvd and author. They will talk about their work in the fashion industry and address the challenges we face together in building a local, more sustainable supply chain.
Academy Town Square: Planting for the Future
In neighborhoods across Philadelphia, communities from the Philippines, Burma, Puerto Rico, Vietnam and the African Diaspora steward gardens and farms filled with ancestral plants, where cultural heritage and community science converge
Join us for the next Academy Town Square where Maiken Scott, host of WHYY’s The Pulse, speaks with seedkeepers, farmers and botanists who share how preserving ethnobotanical histories and practices help to advance science and expand our understanding of the natural world — and ourselves. This conversation is in conjunction with Heirloom Plants: Ancestral Seeds in Philadelphia, an exhibition in our Spotlight Gallery on view through February 17, 2025.
Academy Town Square: A Transforming Earth: The Legacy of the Devonian Period
Join us for a deep dive into Earth’s remarkable history on Thursday, September 26, timed with the closing weekend of our exhibition Life Onto Land: The Devonian, which is on view through Sunday, September 29.
In this in-depth Academy Town Square conversation, you’ll hear about the Devonian, a transformational period hundreds of millions of years before the age of the dinosaur — when Earth’s forests first began to appear and first limbed animals emerged. Learn about this fascinating time from Academy scientist Ted Daeschler, paleoecologist Diana Boyer and paleobotanist Jonathan Wilson, whose research contributes to our shared understanding of evolution and Earth's history.
Academy Town Square: Reading the Rocks: How Geology Tells the Earth’s Story
Our planet is so old, it’s hard to wrap your head around – let alone fathom how short our lifespans on earth are – when compared with just about anything in the realm of geology. Join us for the WHYY & Academy Town Square where Maiken Scott explores with geologist and author Marcia Bjornerud how thinking like a geologist can have immeasurable impacts beyond our time.
Academy Town Square: Long Live Sturgeon! (And Other Amazing Fish of the Delaware River Basin)
Academy Town Square that originally took place February 15, 2024. A conversation hosted by WHYY’s Maiken Scott on the Atlantic Sturgeon, a fish that “epitomizes the global biodiversity crisis,” as well as other vulnerable fishes in the mid-Atlantic region. Panelists include Mariangeles Arce H. of the Academy, David Keller of the Academy, Eric J. Hilton of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, and Dewayne Fox of Delaware State University.
Academy Town Square: Grasslands: Restoring Bird Habitat
Maiken Scott, host of WHYY's The Pulse, and bird conservationist Zoe Warner discuss a 10-year study conducted in Chester County that has led to greater insights into bird habitat needs and a visionary plan to protect them.
Academy Town Square: Lights Out Philly
During the fall 2020 migration season, a perfect storm of events led to the tragic deaths of thousands of birds from window strikes. This sorrowful occurrence galvanized a volunteer group called Bird Safe Philly, which is determined to prevent something similar from happening again.
Through their Lights Out Philly campaign, the group was able to convince many of the city’s building owners to turn out their lights at night during the spring and fall migration periods.
Join us for a conversation hosted by Sophia Schmidt, environmental reporter for WHYY, to better understand the challenges that birds face in urban environments and the ways that we can better protect them.
Academy Town Square Presents: Flooding in Philadelphia's Eastwick Community
In this special Academy Town Square, residents of Eastwick will share their challenges as well as their determined spirit — describing the history of a remarkable community organizing effort and raising awareness of what we can do to support it.
Academy Town Square Presents: More Livable Communities in an Era of Climate Change
As we adapt to our changing climate, unexpected benefits may follow — especially for marginalized communities. Efforts to reduce heating and flooding bring more green spaces that are known to strengthen mental health and improve communities.
Emergency preparedness efforts create more accessible areas for older and disabled members of the community. Join us to explore how these solutions to climate change provide an opportunity for equity to marginalized Black and Latino communities.
Views and opinions expressed by the speakers are solely their own and do not necessarily represent any associated institutions.
Academy Town Square Presents: Preparing for a Warmer, Wetter Philadelphia
Climate change is causing Philadelphia not only to heat up, but also to experience more frequent and intense flooding
events.
In this program we’ll explore how local communities are dealing with increasing temperatures
exacerbated by the urban heat island effect; natural cycles of flooding; and how urbanization and climate change
impact flooding risks in our city. But where there are challenges, there are people ready to step up and face them.
Find out how, from community groups to city government, Philadelphians are making efforts to understand and mitigate
the effects of a warmer, wetter Philadelphia.
Academy Town Square Presents: Gideon Mendel Drowning World
Gideon Mendel joined us for an Academy Town Square on May 6 to discuss his engagement with social issues as a
photographer and artist, including the challenge of making climate change visible.
Academy Town Square Presents: Voting for the Environment
“Voting for the Environment,” a free program in the Academy Town Square series, features a roundtable discussion with leaders of the League of Conservation Voters, Clean Air Council, and other key environmental and advocacy organizations.
Learn about the important issues that affect the local and global environment and how the upcoming election will influence them. Join us for this interactive discussion that will help you become a better citizen.